


live not just survive

by itjustcantbe



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, Trans Male Character, barry and bn! are the best of friends!, drabble flashbacky content, gratuitous and self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 22:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18303350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itjustcantbe/pseuds/itjustcantbe
Summary: “Is it bad?”“Could be,” the friend says with a hum. “Hope not.”Ben’s brows furrow and he looks concerned, but he nods for his friend to continue.“I’m. Well. Fuck it, I’m Barry,” he says.





	live not just survive

“Ben.”

It’s nearing the end of sixth form, Ben and a friend sitting in the library studying together, the only ones there; sat at a table not long before the library will kick them out and send them home. But Ben’s closest friends speaks. 

“Ben. I need to say something. It’s serious.”

“Is it bad?”

“Could be,” the friend says with a hum. “Hope not.”

Ben’s brows furrow and he looks concerned, but he nods for his friend to continue. 

“I’m. Well. Fuck it, I’m Barry,” he says. “That’s the name I want you to call me. If you don’t like it, I… Fuck, I don’t know what I’ll do. Hopefully I’m not so pussy that I’ll go back on it, but I guess I can’t count that out as an option, I mean, it isn’t a good option here so, I dunno, just, say something, please.”

“Barry,” Ben repeats the name - even at 18 he can speak in a tone that’s so firm it’s calming. “It’s okay. Does this mean you’re … ?”

He leaves the question hanging in the air, not wanting to be the one who voices the word but not wanting to leave it all up to chance. 

“I’m trans,” Barry confirms. “I know it seems sudden, but it isn’t. I just couldn’t cope so I hid it until I knew I could deal with it.” 

“I’m glad you don’t feel like hiding it anymore -”

 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Barry says, his face now reading concern like nothing else. “I’m not ready for that. But I don’t want you not knowing. Exams are soon and then you’re fucking off to culinary school and I’m going who knows where and I don’t want you thinking about me as -” 

Barry uses his old name. Ben promises himself not to think it again unless he has to. 

Ben nods emphatically, and there’s no doubt in Barry’s mind that Ben wouldn’t do anything to do wrong by him, not now he knows this. Dealing with his parents, with other friends, that could come later, but for now he had Ben and Ben knew and that would be enough. 

Barry was right anyway, once their exams are through and graduation over, they don’t see each other as much. Culinary school is busy at first, and once it starts including work experience it runs at antisocial hours, and Barry doesn’t want to stick in one place too long when his facial hair starts growing in like a pubescent boy (which, he thinks with a laugh, he basically is) and he can’t speak more than a couple of sentences without his voice breaking. It’s all worth it to him, but when he goes to Switzerland, and introduces himself as Barry Taylor and no one doubts for a second that he’s a man, that’s where he realises how good he has it now. 

When Sorted starts, not just the cookbook but the videos, needing them to all interact together a lot more, Barry breathes a sigh of relief at the end of every day, when no one slips up on his name. He doesn’t make as much of a thing of it with everyone else, lets them see the facial hair and hear Ben calling him Barry. Barry is the one who didn’t go to uni proper, so no one has an excuse of not having the brain cells to rub together to put it together. 

It’s good, Barry thinks. For all the shit of high school and transition, it’s good now, in the Sorted studio, editing photos for a business that he put together with the first friends he was out to. He doesn’t realise he’s lost in thought until Ben calls his name. 

“Barry? Baz?” 

It shakes him out of his head. 

“You all good mate?” Ben, ever caring, asks.

Barry nods. “I’ve got it good now.”

Ben chuckles a little at that, not a hint of malice there. “That all?”

“It’s good, all this,” Barry replies, he waves his arms, encompassing himself and Ben as he gestures around the studio. “I’m glad we got here.”

**Author's Note:**

> this doesnt fit th other big trans barry fic im writing but whatever this is peaceful and peace can b good. its ten to 4am n im sat in a ? public park? wrote half of this on mobile while here and boy js mobile ao3 a challenge  
> title frm live in living colour frm catch me if u can bc “whats a name just window dressing, everyone knows its clothes that make a man” is trans culture


End file.
